Posts in "Occupy the Honor Roll"

The greedy 4.0ers on our campus are hogging up all of the GPA. While they advance to prestigious universities, the students with lower GPAs are not offered the same opportunities. Wouldn’t it be fair, in the name of justice and equality, to level the playing field and increase the GPAs of lower ranking students by providing them with the GPA points of the greedy upper class of students?

That's the sort of satirical argument Diablo Valley College YAL made at our recent "Occupy the Honor Roll" activism event. In all honesty, making the strong weaker does not make the weak stronger. And making the rich poorer does not make the poor richer. Margaret Thatcher famously declared that those who favor income redistribution “would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich" -- and we as Young Americans for Liberty believe in equal opportunity and fairness through free markets, which we know will promote equality and increase the standard of living for the poorest sectors of a population.

On April 18, DVC YAL collected a couple of pages worth of petition signatures and student contact information to support GPA Redistribution, causing a stir on campus among the many statist students. A lot of students thought we were serious and not only signed our petition but also emailed us with support for this “movement.” Some students were looking forward to an increase in GPA. One student emailed us and declared that this could “improve the economy” by creating more opportunities for those students with disadvantaged GPAs to attend institutions of higher education. As we'd sarcastically claimed, maybe all that is wrong with our economy is GPA inequality, with the gap between the 4.0ers and the 89%ers constantly increasing?

On Friday the 27th, the ETSU chapter of Young Americans for Liberty conducted our final event of the semester. The satirical “Occupy the Honor Roll” event was preceded by putting the attached fliers around campus in high traffic areas such as light poles on the way to the cafeteria and indoor and outdoor notice boards.

The event lasted for about three hours. We positioned our table outside one of the main entrances to the food court and asked people “Would you like to sign our petition?” Most of the students asked what the petition was for; during the first hour of our event, we explained the petition by saying that we wanted equal grades, ending discriminatory grading practices, and that all students should have a chance at a good job. Of course, we told them that this would be achieved by giving everyone in the class the same grade. Unfortunately, this gained many signatures. As soon as people heard “ending discriminatory grading” they wanted to sign the petition. We offered them to read the flier to see how we were going to end discriminatory grading, but many people did not even read what they were signing!

After the first hour of our demonstration, we made the petition seem more radical. We clearly stated that it would make everyone get a C. We told people that even if they did not go to class at all or do any of the work, they would get a C. We even told them that this would apply to medical classes. Still, we had many people sign our petition.

On the bright side, we had several people that disagreed with our petition. Once a person showed opposition to our plan, we told them that our petition was a scam and intended only for self-reflection. We then proceeded to tell them the true purpose of YAL and invited them to join our chapter.

The YAL group at NC State took to the brickyard on the last week of classes to #occupy GPA where a group of Obama supporters was registering voters.

Our satirical occupy movement quickly gained the attention of the actual occupiers, who gathered around our tent to make sure that everyone knew we were not really with the occupy movement. Despite being surrounded by occupiers our event continued as usual.

We interviewed students asking if they'd be willing to give up their GPA for the "greater good." Not one student was willing to give up their GPA but would have loved to have had some points given to them.

The following write up comes from Graham Kozak about not only their GPA event but the importance of such events. His argument is that campuses, which are typically left-leaning, need an organization with a different perspective to be a part of these political "waves" on campus. Here's his story. (Note: I made this post for Graham because he's in the midst of graduation. Congrats!)

If the University of Michigan is any indication, campus agitators adopt a new cause to oppose every few years. The Vietnam Era saw massive anti-draft protests; the nineties witnessed some very public expressions of anti-corporate sentiment; the new millennium was accompanied by concerns over the elimination of affirmative action programs. Pro-Palestine and anti-war protests formed a more or less constant background hum (ending, oddly enough, only when President Obama took office).

That's not to say that these protests are anything but noble. In fact, they add some spice to campus life while raising some very valid -- and often very serious -- issues. Often, however, campus activism is dominated by one perspective: that of the left.

For that reason, it's important for libertarian campus leaders to come up with novel, effective activism tactics to get heard. The hot issue these days is inequality: Inequality of income, inequality of opportunity…inequality of pretty much anything, really. If you need a more thorough list, ask your local Occupiers. Concerns over inequality, whether legitimate or not, gives libertarian groups new opportunities to speak out and inform students about the free market -- and satiric "Redistribute GPA" events like YAL's "Occupy the Honor Roll" this April attract the attention necessary to make our voices heard.

The Young Americans for Liberty chapter at Indiana University-Purdue-Indianapolis took our campus by storm last week. During this jam-packed “Week of Liberty,” the IUPUI YAL chapter showed other organizations what “all-out activism” is all about.

Monday through Friday, our chapter demonstrated hard-work and determination. We held multiple events over the cours of the week: Occupy the Honor Roll, Visualize the Debt, reYALity Check: The Price Is Wrong for Big Government, and Know your Rights Activism Events -- and even put our own twist on many of the events.

On April 18th, YAL at UCF made students aware about Occupy the Honor Roll. Outside the UCF Student Union we educated students about the 89% and how to properly redistribute GPA's to make everything more "fair."

In the hot Florida weather we used our trademark tactic of giving out free popsicles to students. These sweet, tasty delights proved very successful in engaging students on the issue of GPA redistribution. Students were very receptive to the message and thought it was immoral to take the hard-earned GPA that they worked for. Everyone that came to the table was not in support of redistributing their or anyone else's GPA. When I told one girl about our satiric efforts to take from the 4.0 students and give to others she exclaimed, "That's ridiculous; GPA is something you earn."

Overall, our message was delivered and students at UCF now know about the 89%. In the end 124 popsicles were passed out, 35 emails were added to our list, and 1 successful event was carried out. Above you can view a video of the day's efforts to educate our fellow students.

Our Young Americans for Liberty chapter at UCLA just finished our April Activism event, "Occupy the Honor Roll," in which we took campus by storm to protest the egregious GPA inequality of our educational system. Between cries of "We are the 89%," "Redistribute GPA, fairness at UCLA," and "Don't let the 11% take 89% of the grade points," we turned heads and passed out all of our fliers with more information about YAL on them.

We tabled on Bruinwalk, the high-traffic corridor of campus, and proceded to walk up and down it holding a large posterboard sign. It read, "We are the 89%" on one side, and "We will no longer remain silent" on the reverse, with #ODL (Occupy the Dean's List, our version of the honor roll) symbols at the bottom. It also happened to be Israeli Independence Day. We took advantage of the large crowd already gathered at a Bruins for Israel event in celebration to promote our (satiric) message of equality, fairness, and good grades for all.

To our surprise and excitment, we met an actual Occupier on-campus promoting a May-Day protest in Downtown LA. He earnestly believed that we were on his side, provided words of encouragement, and even gave us one of his May Day fliers. Sadly, he left before we could see his reaction to our informational YAL flyer. For a little while afterward, we followed him from a short distance behind, exhorting people to stop being selfish and start being more charitable about their GPA while he asked them to do the same for their incomes, never noticing that we were mocking him the whole time.

Whether it was having students who legitimately wanted a redistribution of grades and never got the whole satire part of the event -- or other students who hated the proposal but didn't understand what satire is -- this event was an interesting one, to say the least.

It was a day of railing against all those 4.0 fat-cats and doing our best to unite us 89% on campus not a part of that GPA elite. Amazingly, we were able to fill up two petition sheets. That being said, quite a few signatures came from people that understood the act and just wanted to support a little theatre on campus.

The newly formed YAL chapter at the University of Denver is taking their campus by storm, and the local media is noticing. Denver Westword recently wrote up a post about the group's "Occupy the Honor Roll" event for April All-Out Activism:

"We're not in support of the Occupy movement, and we're kind of doing a play on it," [Sydney] Kirchner said in advance of the event. "If someone comes up to the table and says they have a 3.5, we'll say, 'We have some failing students, would you like to share your GPA with them?' Then we'll start talking to them about their political beliefs and how they feel about the Occupy movement."

At that point, the Young Americans explained their own stance on the wealth divide -- namely, the opposite of Occupy Wall Street's. "I don't think they have solid enough goals, and they don't have premises on which to make any change," Kirchner says of the organization. She does, however, have friends who occupy, and she think it's fun. "That's why I'm a part of YAL -- because I actually want to see youth making change."

To read the full article on the group, as well as see pictures of their recent activism, click here.